What's going on

I store loads of files on two separate western digital hard drives copied over from my flash cards. When I go back to look at some of the raw images a few of them (but still way too many) get corrupted whether viewing in lightroom or photoshop. This happens to the same images on both hard drives. When converted to a Tif file this does not happen.
Any ideas?

It is a corrupted file. This is often due to a corrupted file allocation table (if you are on a Windows machine). There are several possible causes. One of the most common is unplugging the drive without ejecting them properly first or shutting down the computer by just turning it off rather than logging out of Windows. It only takes one time to cause this.

If that's not it, it is possible that you have some sort of HD controller problem with your computer. You might want to run some diagnostics like those with the free HDTune utility.

You will also want to run a scandisk and fix any bad sectors. This could also be due to an HD that is failing and losing sectors.

Rob, you are in luck, I have had many, many files from my CF cards that look very similar, almost exact to yours above. As EJ stated, they are corrupt files and are useless. I always shoot RAW files. I was plugging my CF cards into a Delkin 54 ExpressCard CF Adapter, then I would plug the adapter with card into the 54 ExpressCard slot on my laptop. Each and every CF card download would produce anywhere from 1 to 10 of these corrupt files that look identical to yours above. My solution to this problem was to stop using the Delkin 54 ExpressCard Adapter altogether. I purchased a Delkin CF card reader that plugs into any USB port. That was a few years ago and I have never had a corrupt file since I stopped using the 54 ExpressCard Adapter, not even one. The files looked great on my cameras LCD, but were corrupt after I downloaded them from the card, so that was my clue that it was the 54 ExpressCard Adapter. Hope this helps...........Try a CF card reader that plugs into a USB port.

Well, Joe, I have had a couple RAW files that look like Rob's and I downloaded them with a card reader that plugged into a USB port. So not sure that is the solution, though worth a try.

Roberta Olenick
Vancouver, BC
www.neverspook.com

neverspook wrote:Well, Joe, I have had a couple RAW files that look like Rob's and I downloaded them with a card reader that plugged into a USB port. So not sure that is the solution, though worth a try.

Roberta Olenick
Vancouver, BC
www.neverspook.com

The point is more that Joe changed from an individual failing card reader to a different one, not specifically the change from expresscard to usb

neverspook wrote:Well, Joe, I have had a couple RAW files that look like Rob's and I downloaded them with a card reader that plugged into a USB port. So not sure that is the solution, though worth a try.

Roberta Olenick
Vancouver, BC
www.neverspook.com

If you have files like that in camera it is almost always due to opening the CF card door before it was done writing.

I had a similar problem a few years ago using SD flash cards in my Canon 1D mark IIn. My images were being corrupted on the card in the camera. Doing the low level format in-camera was sufficient to map out the bad areas in the flash card or correct the FAT issues, and it worked reliably there after. I am not sure what to do if you are using CF cards... you may be able to low-level format CF cards in a card reader on your computer, but I haven't tried (or researched) this option -- the low level format option only appears for SD cards on Canon cameras (my experience only extends to the Canon 1D IIn and the 1D IV).

I am pretty certain that I did not open the CF card door before it was done writing because the corrupted images are part of a series I took and they are early on in the card as well. I would not have opened the CF card door at that point - there would have been no reason to do so.

In my case, the preview in Bridge looks just fine for these corrupted images and it is only when I open them in ACR that I see the corruption.

What do you mean by low-level format? If that solved the problem for SD cards, be nice to know what it is and if it can be done on CF cards, which is what I use.

Of course, I am just getting around to editing images I took months ago, so I have no idea which card these images were captured on

Roberta Olenick
Vancouver, BC
www.neverspook.com

Roberta, other things can cause power loss too on the camera. All I'm saying is that that is the most common way for this to occur.

For a lower level (not low level which you can't actually do on a flash cards) stick the card in a cad reader on the PC and format it there and uncheck the fast Format option. Then stick it back i the camera and format it in the camera. This should mark of any bad sectors.

Thanks. EJ. I actually never format the cards on the computer, always just in the camera. But I will try this.

Roberta